Beijing Lu road construction to last nine more months

On Monday city officials announced a new construction and rebuilding effort along Beijing Lu that will be finished by November 15, 2013. Traffic on the six-lane road has been severely disrupted since ground was broken on the Kunming subway system in 2010. A series of delays and operational setbacks have, at times, made it seem that traffic on the road may never completely return to normal.

Started yesterday, the road "rehabilitation program" will cover 11.7 kilometers of blacktop. The project stretches from the Kunming Train Station (昆明站) to Fengyuan Lu (沣源路) in the city's north.

Plans released by the Traffic Police Department call for repaving roads that have been scarred by months of continuous construction. In addition new bike lanes and sidewalks will be installed and the city will plant more than 3,000 trees.

The scheme is reminiscent of the Scenic Avenues (景观大道) undertaking that snarled city traffic for much of 2012. That project encompassed 22 streets, many of them vital Kunming thoroughfares.

Although Beijing Lu is only one street, it is arguably one of the most important traffic arteries in the Spring City. Work will be completed in sections while two-way traffic is funneled into side-by-side parallel lanes.

Pedestrian traffic is expected to be affected as well. Sidewalks will be torn up and repaved, although detours on opposite sides of the road will be made available. No word was given on rebuilding several pedestrian overpasses demolished along the street in 2010.

Official planners originally considered suspending all Beijing Lu bus traffic while rebuilding. They decided against it but commuters should expect significant delays and altered pick-up points. A bit disconcerting is a separate report stating bus station locations along the length of Beijing Lu have yet to be decided.

It is recommended that drivers try to avoid the street entirely. Planners have suggested the second and third ring roads be used as detours.

As of this writing no specific dates have been announced for when the different sections of Beijing Lu will be renovated, or, for that matter, what those sections are. The finish date for the project is set to coincide with the start of the Kunming portion of the China-ASEAN Trade Expo in November.

Subway construction — the initial cause of Beijing Lu's traffic disruptions — was not addressed in the report. Line 2 of the city's metro is being built underneath the thoroughfare. Metro Line 1 was most recently scheduled to open before Spring Festival, but a train derailment that killed a train conductor may have postponed those plans.

Comments

Wonderful, if like all other projects the nice new bike lane the first day will be filled with cabs, parked cars, vendors, scooters going the wrong way, and for some reason all the people that do not like walking on the sidewalks, but would rather clog up the bike lane and or street. Hopefully subway construction is done so after completing the new street do not end up ripping it up again. That is a lot to expect or ask for here i thinks.

Actually i feel bad for anyone living near Bejing Lu if like Longquan road project they have no regards for sleeping and are jack hammering old road all night, trucks and dust will be even worse than normal during the entire project.

As for construction - once Kunming becomes a somewhat standard major capital city - construction will and must become endless - to maintain employment for the unskilled and vaguely skilled migrant workers who flock to the cities in search of opportunity (not to mention the underworld of thieves, murderers, bandits).

Sure, the pavement or the road will be dug up again after the beautification is done. You just have to look up the speghetti of cables on the poles, that would be a new project after, like all good government planning all over the world. :-))))))))

been here for a number of years and if you notice it does feel tiring at times living in kunming due to traffic.

i mean every year they fix certain roads especially beijing road.

another way if you notice they start out rebuilding or improving or change the road after a few months of congestion, traffic, etc. it does feel good to have a good flow of traffic only to have it back again after a few months.

its ridiculous really. it never ends and the worst part is their infrastructure only concentrates on what we see but they never change so much of what those cannot be seen like drainage pipe line, etc etc.

expect once rain comes in its going to be water around us for a little time.

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